Expanding the plastics life cycle

Plastics play a vital role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and enabling modern life. They also play an important role in our portfolio. That is why we are focused on providing the products the world needs while working to develop and deploy solutions to reduce plastic waste. To this end, we have started up our first, large-scale advanced recycling facility and are progressing activities throughout the world with the expectation to have about 1 billion pounds of annual advanced recycling capacity by year-end 2026.

Report Dec. 15, 2022

Expanding the plastics life cycle
Image United Nations Sustainable Development Goals related to this content.
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals related to this content.

Plastics are increasingly one of society’s materials of choice because of their superior performance, affordability and life-cycle benefits compared to alternatives. Step into any hospital, kitchen, daycare center, science lab, airplane, or automobile, and you will find abundant examples of critical plastic products. The plastics found in cell phones, computers, vehicles, packaging, surgical devices, personal protective equipment, facemasks, and many other applications provide countless benefits as well.

From our operations, our goal is to continue experiencing zero pellet loss to the environment. Although laws and regulations related to the reporting of plastic pellet loss to the environment vary by jurisdiction, ExxonMobil adopted a global standard across our resin-handling facilities. Because of these efforts, ExxonMobil had no reportable plastic pellet losses from our resin-handling facilities in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021.

More information on plastics life-cycle, see our Advancing Climate Solutions 2023 Progress Report section on “Enabling emissions reductions with high performance plastics and advanced recycling” (pages 74 – 77).